


we'll become our colour, someday

by sayomiya



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Ryuseitai, they're 1 big family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 18:45:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19796827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayomiya/pseuds/sayomiya
Summary: They'll grow into their very own version of their assigned colour, someday.--it's a promise, not a distant hope. Perhaps, in some ways, it's already come true.[ Cantare Zine piece for the song Growing Starry Days ]





	we'll become our colour, someday

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! i was a pinch hitter for growing starry days and here's my piece c: we all worked really hard on our pieces, so please do check the zine out on twitter (@enstsongszine)! it's over 200 free pages of content ~

_ —the yellow sun kisses the earth a merry “ _ good morning”.

Shinobu used to look at his yellow RYUSEITAI jacket with a look of apprehension.

Some nights, he’d sit in his room, staring at his unit’s outfit and squeezing the fabric absentmindedly as his mind drifted off to nothingness, occupied with idle questions that he didn’t have the answer to.

Most of them were harmless, curious thoughts that bounced around for a minute or so before fading away into wherever thoughts even sprouted from in the first place. Those were okay, those were normal, and Shinobu would just fiddle with the bundle of fabric in his hands until they went away.

A few were more troublesome, like:  _ How did you even become Ryusei Yellow? _

Shinobu doesn’t know the answer to that, and he doesn’t think he ever will.

Maybe they just needed someone to take on that role, and he was the only available one to do so. That was the most plausible reason—he’d approached Chiaki when the unit had been rebuilt, the first bricks only just having been set in place and the blueprints a mess. He was there because they needed  _ someone,  _ not him.

He was someone from the darkness, and definitely not the colour of the sun.

Yet, there’s another explanation—one that he can’t quite bring himself to believe, but one that he likes to entertain.

Maybe—just maybe, Chiaki had seen the  _ yellow  _ in him.

Shinobu is a ninja. A creature of the shadows, where the light never falls, and where he’s used to being all alone, with cold eyes that turn disapproving gazes at his antics.

But slowly, the  _ yellow  _ bled into his life; into his heart. Or had it been there all along?

He’d been taken by the hand and into the sun. His days grew brighter, as if they’d been illuminated suddenly, and where his sides felt cold and empty now fit four other aspiring heroes.

RYUSEITAI had bathed him in the  _ yellow  _ that he’d struggled to believe he even possessed, and now that he’d found it, he was acutely aware of all the colour that was contained in his body—it spread past his heart, into his arms, legs;  _ everywhere. _

Yellow is the colour of the sun.

The sun is what RYUSEITAI had given him, and now it’s his duty to become his own “sun” to others.

Shinobu likes the sound of that.

  
  


_ —as the sun shines, the black shadow is there to catch its rays. _

* * *

It was no secret that Tetora had hated his colour at the start of the year. It was a grudge that had been planted in his heart like a weed, and he didn’t have the willpower to go gardening.

He didn’t like being in RYUSEITAI. His mind still hung on the “what if’s” of the past—what if he, by some chance, had gotten into his beloved Akatsuki? What if he was able to perform aside the senpai that he admired so much; what if, what if,  _ what if? _

A month passed. The prickly resentment died down a little, becoming something much more muted and neutral—it had grown into something of grudging acceptance. He couldn’t change what had been given to him, and even if what had been given to him wasn’t what he’d wanted, he’d just have to roll with it.

Still, he couldn’t erase the bitter feeling he had. He wanted to be an  _ actual  _ hero, at least! Not someone that just watched tokukatsu shows all day and listen to a leader blabber on about useless ideals that they couldn’t even carry out!

He supposed Chiaki knew he wasn’t happy, somehow. Tetora always had some snarky remark to counter his every sentence, right along with Midori—the two of them got along like cat and dog, and Tetora continued to sulk.

He couldn’t even get a cooler colour. Black was the colour no one wanted; it wasn’t bright or fun or vaguely hero-like at all. It was like the final slap in the face to a series of unfortunate events, like a cold bowl of leftover noodles.

Then Chiaki had told him one day, in a strangely serious fashion, about what Black could mean.

Sure, Tetora could think that black was nothing. But to Chiaki, black could be everything

Wherever there was  _ black  _ in Tetora, Chiaki saw it as a way to grow. Black could absorb, and black could give rise to any combination of brilliance.

_ Black absorbs from the shadows. _

Black absorbs, and absorbs, until it’ll be as full of light and as bright as the  _ red  _ of Chiaki that he’d always chased after.

So Tetora thought hard about it, and stopped minding  _ black  _ as much.

Black wasn’t nothing anymore. 

Black was a place to grow.

* * *

_ —and in the shade of the shadows and the shine of the sun, the greens of the plants are even more vibrant. _

An accident was perhaps the most accurate way to describe how Midori had found his way into RYUSEITAI.

No shining eyes, no declarations of strong wills or reasons that would put his to shame. No, he didn’t even want to be in the idol course, and he didn’t have the heart to pull out once Chiaki had dragged him into his unit.

None of his unit-mates energetic cheers ever reached his ears. He found them more than a pain than anything; they were all just way too noisy, and they dragged him along with them even when he complained.

It was even more ironic that his colour was green. Chiaki had probably just given him the colour just because of his name.

It wasn’t like he minded, since he was used to people making fun of his name anyway...but it was more of the experience as a whole. He detested it; he detested having to be in the sun and in the middle of a bunch of people who were too energetic for their own good, but he was too chicken to actually  _ do  _ anything about it.

He was tired, and he was numb. People like him couldn’t handle people like  _ them. _

People like them, who never let go of his hand despite his complaints, and didn’t end up leaving his side despite how he’d been to them. Despite being a puddle of negativity that soaked up their light, they held on to his hand.

They were the stars Midori didn’t deserve.

Green is the colour of nature and renewal, the colour of growth and harmony.

Midori couldn’t see himself as any of these things, and yet, as the days went by—

He became less scared to take a step forward. He became less scared to laugh along at his friends’ stupid antics, and he became less scared to put himself out there.

Perhaps he was just Ryusei Green because of his name—and perhaps that was all that he could be then. 

But, If Midori were to keep this colour, he thinks he’ll be able to grow into the true image of  _ green  _ someday.

* * *

_ —little dewdrops roll off leaves, and into the soothing blue of the stream. _

_ Blue  _ is as natural to Kanata as it is natural for fish to breathe through their gills. 

As far as he can remember, he’s always been surrounded by it. He has been a creature of the “underwater”, where human and fish are indistinguishable, but for some reason, human and god are not the same.

Blue is the colour of a lot of things, but does blue not also hide a certain melancholy within its intoxicatingly calming shades?

Somehow, all the blue started to be a little suffocating to Kanata. Blue was everywhere he went; it was the colour of the ocean, after all, and it was the colour of his family. It was the colour of his worshippers, and it was the colour of the world.

Kanata couldn’t help but feel something strange at that. What was  _ blue  _ to him, exactly? 

He’d realise what that “something” would be later on, where someone had took his hand and explained to him what “loneliness” was. He would realise that having only  _ blue  _ and nothing else had led to a life of monotone and longing that he hadn’t even realised he had.

And then, before he could start to hate what  _ blue  _ ever stood for, Chiaki laughed and came to him with a suggestion.

—why not reinvent the meaning of blue for himself? If it’s Kanata, he can surely find a  _ blue  _ that suits him, no? 

RYUSEITAI is “strange”, Kanata thinks. They have never asked for anything—no wishes, no gods; they just wanted him to walk alongside them and to perform with them on the same stage.

Kanata smiles to himself.

He thinks he’s found it along the way. And he’ll let it evolve, and change, until he’s reached his perfect definition of his very own  _ blue. _

Perhaps RYUSEITAI have not asked him for anything, because they  _ are  _ everything already.

Perhaps it is because they are so full of their own colour that they are able to coexist like this.

And Kanata comes to enjoy this sort of existence.

* * *

_ —red is the colour that completes their five-hued rainbow. _

“The five of us are RYUSEITAI!”

It’s something Chiaki has fallen into the habit of saying. He shouts it out loud, until everyone’s tired of it—and, in a way, he likes to think of it as his own special catchphrase.

No, RYUSEITAI’s own special catchphrase. It belonged to all of them _ ,  _ not him.

Yet, each time he says it, he can’t help but feel a warmth from the bottom of his heart. It’s because that statement, simple as it might be, is so overwhelmingly  _ true  _ that he almost wants to feel relieved.

It has to be the five of them. The five of them, standing united, against adversities.

That was what Chiaki’s RYUSEITAI was, and what it had become.

The sparkling lights of the Repayment Festival’s stage fade from their view. The performance is over; a brilliant finale to a year of memories.

But who’s to say that the memories would ever stop?

Tetora and Shinobu come to him first, unable to stop the tears as they burrow into his chest. Midori sighs a little but follows after his fellow first-years, ducking his head to hide his crying, and Kanata completes the group hug with a simple smile.

Chiaki’s chest feels tight, like it’s about to burst.

Red, the colour of a hero. The colour he’d always longed for.

But aren’t five colours better than one? They fill in for where someone leaves off, and together…

They really are RYUSEITAI.

Even if he couldn’t quite feel like  _ red  _ sometimes. Even if memories of inadequacy and tears linger at the back of his mind.

He was still Ryusei Red, and it had grown into a title that was his everything.

Ryusei Red, the colour of passion and energy. The one that could grab hold of others’ hands and pull them along; the one that could lead them into the sunlight.

Chiaki thinks  _ that’s  _ what he’s meant to do.

His voice cracks as he speaks. He’s crying too, there’s no doubt all of them are, but there are wide smiles on all their faces that makes him dizzy with happiness.

“One more time,” he says, in the privacy of their dressing room. “Let’s do it one more time.”   
  


And they all oblige, raising their fists to the air in a manner of finality. Like this was more of a promise than a goodbye.

_ Never stop growing, never stop running, and one day, help others realise that too. _

Their voices echo in the air, in a way that makes him really see how worth it being  _ red  _ was. 

“The five of us are RYUSEITAI!” 


End file.
